Mass Effect 2: Naruto's Mission

Written by I.K.A. Valian

All characters and material from Naruto are the property of Masashi Kishimoto.

All characters and material from Mass Effect are the property of BioWare.

Chapter 2: Meeting an Illusive Man

Last Time

Naruto woke up in the Konoha hospital and quickly discovered that not all as was he assumed it to be. He found everything changed, different, and new. Tsunade was now the Konoha Representative, no one recognized him, his friends couldn't believe he was who he said he was, and Kakashi was the Hokage. And on top of that, everyone was over a decade older.

After investigating, it was discovered that Naruto's recent memories had been erased. The only clue to where he was, what happened to him, and why he had vanished for over ten years lay in a cryptic memory message from Sasuke and a strange device that seems to have been the vehicle of Naruto's transport to the future. Following the clues, Naruto embarks on a quest to save Sakura and Sasuke so they can all go home.

"I see we're picking up strays now, Jacob?" Miranda asked as she exited from a forward section of the 'carriage' when it suddenly lifted off the ground and flew out of the station. Naruto was drawn side of the vessel as he realized for the first time that it wasn't a carriage at all, but a flying vehicle. And they weren't in an underground base, but in the middle of outer space.

"Wow…" Naruto said as he watched the station they'd exited from get smaller and smaller. Then something kicked from behind and the view blue shifted. "This is so awesome! I'm in space! I can't believe I'm in space! I need to know what kind of carriage this thing is, cause I want one now!"

"It's a Kodiak class shuttle," Jacob said. He frowned. "What did you think it was?"

"He doesn't know what an Omni-tool is either," Shepard said, "yet I know he was riding around inside of Sovereign when he was under the effects of Indoctrination."

"If he's from the same planet as Uchiha Sasuke was," Miranda said, "then he's no doubt from a pre-space flight civilization. It stands to reason he would find all of this fascinating." They turned to look at Naruto who was now staring out at the swirling blue shifted space outside the shuttle with wide open eyes. "But there are more important things to attend to," Miranda continued. "I need to run some final tests on you, Shepard, to make sure you're at one hundred percent."

"Really," Jacob said exasperatedly. "After all we went through you to get out of that station you want to do this now?"

"It has to be done," Miranda said matter-of-factly. "If Shepard isn't the woman she was before she died, then the project will have failed. The Illusive man wants to know either way."

"It's alright, Jacob," Shepard said. "I'll answer your questions. I at least owe you that much."

Jacob sighed and, with a shake of his head, activated and began manipulating his Omni-tool. Naruto, suddenly silent, sat on the bench next to Shepard opposite Miranda. He watched Jacob curiously as he manipulated the orange interface of the Omni-tool and then looked up.

"Alright," Jacob said, "you were born on the space cruiser Andolite. Your parents were both in the Alliance Navy. You grew up moving from ship to ship until you were old enough to enlist at eighteen."

Shepard nodded. "It wasn't the easiest of childhoods, but I got to see things no other kids got to see. Go places no other kids got to go. My parents were always busy or deployed, but I eventually understood why."

"Shortly after you enlisted, you wound up on Elysium," Jacob said. Miranda was now studying the readout of her own Omni-tool displayed over her wrist. Naruto frowned and glanced down at his right hand. He activated the Omni-tool and began to study it more in depth than he had before. "You were the only one left standing from your entire unit during the Blitz after rallying the colonists to help the defense and then single handedly holding off an assault for several hours. You were awarded the Star of Terra for your efforts."

"A lot of good men and women died that day defending the colony," Shepard said. She frowned as the memories flashed through her mind. "I'd give up that damn medal if it could bring them back. They were the real heroes."

"Of course, Commander," Jacob said. "I had a few buddies who were there. It was damn impressive."

"How about something more recent," Miranda said suddenly. "On Virmire, you decided to destroy the genophage cure and nearly got killed in the process when… erm…" Miranda glanced up at Naruto and then continued. "When Naruto, here, and Saren Arterius tried to kill you before you could escape. Only two of the Salarian STG team survived and Uchiha Sasuke nearly died."

"I…" Naruto's eyes were wide as his hands shook. "I can't… remember, but it still hurts. I…" He stopped shaking when Shepard put a hand on his shoulder.

"You weren't yourself," she said softly. "When I asked Sakura what you were really like, she described a caring, strong hearted young man who would do anything to save his friends, no matter the cost to himself. Not the egomaniacal, sadistic freak we fought on Virmire." She then turned to Miranda and said, "Captain Kirrahe and his men volunteered to remain behind to ensure the destruction of that facility at the cost of their lives. I didn't leave them lightly and I don't like their sacrifices being second guessed so lightly."

"That wasn't our intention," Jacob said. "Everyone in Cerberus knows that facility had to go. Captain Kirrahe is probably one of the few aliens spoken of well in the organization."

Miranda glanced down at her Omni-tool and frowned. "There really are more tests we should run, just to be sure."

"Come on, Miranda," Jacob said. "We've confirmed her memories are there and I can vouch for her fighting ability personally."

Miranda sighed and her Omni-tool de-activated. "Very well." Then she turned to Naruto. "Now we must deal with our little tag along."

Naruto swallowed loudly. "Uh… yes?"

"Commander, how do we even know that he is no longer Indoctrinated?" she asked. "Reports from your conversation with Vigil state that Indoctrinated sleepers were sent to Prothean colonies as refugees. Those refugees then turned and gave the colonies up to the Reapers."

"The only proof I have is a conversation I had with Sasuke after Sovereign was destroyed, before we went our separate ways," Shepard said. "He told me that he didn't kill Naruto, but set him free and sent him home. He hoped that he'd stay there, but wouldn't put it past Naruto to try and come back."

Naruto nodded and added, "He burned the indoctrination out of my mind with his Sharingan and then let me heal the damage to my brain. Then he put this device on me and sent me home." Naruto reached into his sack and pulled out the device. It no longer hummed with the potential to break the known laws of physics, laying inert in Naruto's hand.

"That's the prototype device Sakura found on Virmire," Shepard said. "I gave it to Sasuke."

"And Sasuke apparently gave it to Naruto when he confronted him inside Sovereign," Jacob said. "Seems legit enough. Is that proof enough for you, Miranda?"

"I suppose it'll have to do," she said, though she was clearly not satisfied. "The Illusive Man will have the final say in all of this anyhow."

A sudden beeping noise from the cockpit spurred Miranda into motion. She stood and entered the other compartment, the door sliding shut after she'd gone. Naruto took a deep breath as he contemplated everything he'd just learned.

He hadn't been himself and had killed a lot of innocent people before he could be saved. By Sasuke nonetheless. And now he was on a mission to save Sasuke and Sakura from the mess that he, most likely, had gotten them into. Or maybe it was Tobi that had done this. Tsunade did say it was Tobi's final attack that sent them here, even though he had no memory of ever fighting Tobi.

"Naruto," Shepard said. The sound of her voice broke him out of his brooding. "Are you going to be alright. Sasuke went through a lot of trouble to save you. If you need some time, then take it."

Naruto shook his head. "That's the thing. It's like I've finally woken up and now I have to catch up real fast or else I won't be able to help at all. I'll be fine after a bit. But tell me," he said, suddenly brightening after shifting gears, "how does this thing work?" Naruto lifted up his hand and showed Shepard and Jacob the Omni-tool on his right arm.

"Shepard, the Illusive Man wishes to speak to you," Miranda said as she entered the shuttle bay waiting room. Shepard turned from the large space facing windows and nodded at the other woman. "He's down the stairs."

"Thank you, Miranda," Shepard said. She nodded to Naruto, who sat on one of the benches against the wall as she left. Naruto nodded back and went back to fiddling with his Omni-tool. It was so much easier to use now, having been shown the proper way it worked. Trying to get it to work by trial and error, while interesting, was getting annoying. What was a 'BSOD Warning' anyway?

Shepard showed him how to move through the menu for the basic abilities of the device, which she said included a radio, a word processor (whatever that was), an Extra-net navigator (not sure what that was either), a simple messaging system that could be used to send voice, text, or pictures as messages to other addresses (most of that explanation when straight over his head), a flashlight, and a camera. Then there were the applications installed onto his Omni-tool that neither Shepard nor Jacob could make heads or tales of, and wouldn't activate to be studied either, couldn't be copied, and refused to be erased.

As he was going through the menus of the messaging system, he noticed that what Shepard called his 'inbox' had a number next to it. He opened the inbox and found a text message waiting for him, with Shepard's name attached to it. Curious, he opened Shepard's text and began to read it.

The question of how he could understand the text when it wasn't in his native language was explained by Miranda. All Omni-tools had translator functions to allow cross-species communication, which was dumbed down for him to 'it translates everything for you.' She also explained that also included what he was hearing as well, because they weren't speaking his native language either. Talk about a head spinner.

'Naruto.' Shepard wrote, 'I don't know how to put this delicately, so I'll be blunt. You've nearly taken my head off too many times for me to trust you outright. But I trust Sasuke's word. So I'm going to give you a chance. Cerberus, on the other hand, can't be trusted. I've had too many dealings with them before where they were experimenting on innocent people and creatures for their own goals. I don't know why they spent two years and however many credits to bring me back to life, but I know that I shouldn't trust them. You shouldn't either. If you help me figure out what they're after, then I'll help you with whatever it is you came here for.'

Naruto frowned and then erased the message. It would be bad if Miranda or Jacob found that. They might throw him in prison, or worse, out into space. He didn't know what space was made up of, but he knew that there was no natural energy out there. That alone made him wary of it.

Naruto crossed his legs, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. There were too many thoughts running through his head. He needed to clear his mind so he could decide what to do next. Meditation would fix that problem.

He never thought that he'd ever get the hang of this infuriatingly boring practice. But leave it to Jiraiya to figure out a way to force him to learn. Then there was the Sage training with the toads. Now it helped him focus his thoughts like he never could before he learned how to center himself.

His mission, find Sasuke, Sakura, and bring them home to the right time. Finding Sasuke and Sakura, it seemed, would be easier if he asked Shepard to help him. She'd met and worked with both of them before, and that likely meant that she knew how to find them again, or where to start looking at the least. Plus, of the three of them, Shepard seemed the most trustworthy, though Jacob was a not too distant second. Miranda he couldn't trust as far as he could throw her, and he could probably throw her very far away.

Shepard, though, seemed to have trouble working with him. And from what she'd said about how he was acting, he didn't blame her. This Indoctrination thing that Sasuke burned out of him had made him a different person. Something evil. He was glad that Sasuke had burned it out, but that raised some other questions about why Sasuke wasn't acting like some idiot bent on revenge still. What happened during the time he couldn't remember?

Then there was Cerberus. This group seemed to have less than honorable intentions if Miranda was anything to go by. He was glad that Shepard felt the same, though he did find it kind of hard to believe that she could be mostly dead for two years. Would he help her to figure out what they were up to? Most certainly he would, but he'd have to be sneaky about it. Besides, Miranda had a stick up her ass, the kind that made his pranks more entertaining.

His meditation was broken, when Miranda sat down next to him. He cracked open one eye and saw she was leaning back in her seat with her legs crossed. His body betrayed his thoughts and was slowly drawn down to her incredible bust-line barely held in check by her skin tight armor. How something like that could be called armor was beyond him, but he'd seen ninja go into battle wearing less and survive without a scratch.

"Ahem." Miranda cleared her throat. Naruto jerked and looked back up to Miranda's face. "Enjoying the view?"

"S-sorry," Naruto said. He blushed and looked off to the side as he silently cursed Jiraiya for corrupting his poor innocent mind. Stupid 'super pervert'.

"I'm not offended in the least," Miranda said, though Naruto swore he picked up on a bit of bitterness in the way she said it, as if she knew he'd react that way, was ready for it, but had never asked if she wanted the body she was given. Naruto assumed that's how most beautiful women felt when they were oggled. "I was instructed to make you an offer, Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto frowned and faced Miranda again. "Come again?"

"The Illusive Man was very intrigued by your return to our dimension," Miranda said. "He believes that whatever Uchiha Sasuke did was thorough enough to warrant a modicum of trust, and as such, wants to offer you a place in a upcoming mission. No doubt, your skills as a Shinobi will come in quite useful."

Naruto regarded Miranda for a moment with a hesitant stare. He glanced off to the side at Jacob, who had remained standing on the other side of the shuttle bay's waiting room since arriving, and noted that he was just as surprised to be hearing this. Naruto focused on Miranda again and tried to gauge how truthful she was being. This wouldn't be the first time someone tried to get one over on him, and having read Shepard's message, this 'offer' made his bullshit senses tingle.

"I… have my own mission that I need to accomplish," Naruto said after detecting no deceit in the way she presented herself. Despite that, the mistrust she was regarding him with clearly said she didn't agree with this "Illusive Man's" decision, but was following orders. So the one called Illusive Man pulled the strings in Cerberus. Hmm… Plan A: Play dumb. "I have to find Sakura and Sasuke and then bring them home."

"Of course," Miranda replied smoothly. "The Illusive Man anticipated your goals and has pledged that in exchange for your assistance, Cerberus will aid you in your search for your companions and how to return you all home."

Naruto silently thought about the offer. It was true that he hadn't a clue as to where to start, how to act in any society he found, and plus, he was in space! Freaking Space! He didn't know the first thing about space travel or how expensive it would be to book transportation to start looking on his own. And how many planets was he expected to look on for his friends?

But Shepard had already offered essentially the same thing. Cerberus' offer seemed just a little too convenient, but utterly legit at the same time. On top of that, Miranda was sincere, but she didn't trust him. He could trust Shepard well enough, and maybe Jacob, but Miranda? He really did not trust the woman to not shoot him. And the more he thought about it, the more this deal sounded like Orochimaru offering him 'power beyond his wildest dreams'. He'd seen what that did to Sasuke.

"Well?" Miranda asked. "What's your answer?"

"I could use the help finding my friends," Naruto conceded, "but how do I know that I can trust you? You wanted to shoot me."

"In my line of work, it's better to shoot first and ask questions second," Miranda said without batting an eye. Naruto worked in a similar environment. It didn't make trusting her any easier. "And I'd probably still shoot you. I'll be honest, I don't trust you to have Cerberus' interests at heart. Shepard either. But I work for the Illusive Man and he wants Shepard, and now you, on the team. If he wants it, I don't have any say in matter." Miranda then leaned in close and said, "It is a very good opportunity."

"If I agreed, what would I be doing?" Naruto asked after silently contemplating everything Miranda and this "Illusive Man" had offered. If nothing else, they were offering him an opportunity to investigate their motivation, which would help him and Shepard in the long run. "What's this mission I'd be part of?"

"The Illusive Man just briefed me on the next mission," Miranda said. She stood and motioned toward Jacob.

"So another colony has gone missing?" he asked as he crossed the room.

"Yes," Miranda said. "Freedom's Progress. As soon as the Illusive Man is finished talking with Shepard, we're going to leave." She turned to Naruto and added, "Consider it a test run to see if you can trust Cerberus."

"Yeah, okay, fine," Naruto said. Plan A: 'play dumb', success. "What's the wrong with the colony? Why is it missing? Did you lose it in space or something?"

Miranda snorted lightly and walked away. Jacob rolled his eyes. "It's not what you think," he said. "Over the past year and a half, someone has been abducting human colonists in the Terminus Systems. All the colonists to the man, woman, and child have just up and vanished without a trace."

"And no one is doing anything about it until now?" Naruto asked. "Back home, if one of our allied villages was under attack, it would take less than a day to dispatch a team of Ninja to help after finding out."

"No one is doing anything about it because they're small colonies out in the middle of the lawless regions," Jacob explained. "It could be anything from pirates or slavers, but we think it's something much bigger. Until now, we've yet to find any substantive proof of who's doing it, but maybe we'll get lucky this time."

"Hmm… I guess I could help you guys out," Naruto said. He crossed his arms and nodded his head. "So we go in, rescue the colonist, and find out who's taking them so we can track them back to their base. Then we go in, kick their ass, rescue the hostages, and otherwise save the day. Sounds easy enough."

"If things have progressed at Freedom's Progress as they have at the other colonies, then there won't be anyone to save," Miranda said. "We'll just be looking for clues as to who is doing this. The rest of your plan sounds adequate enough, despite how simply you put it."

"Ehh… I don't do big, complicated stuff," Naruto said. He grunted as his head started hurting even thinking about it. "I leave that stuff to Shikamaru. He's the one with all the crazy plans inside of plans, wrapped in a plan, covered in plan wrapping paper."

"I hear that," Jacob said. "Something simple that gets the job done. In and out, bad guys dead, day saved." Naruto nodded as he grinned.

Though the holographic interface was more advanced than what Shepard had ever interacted with before, it was obvious that she was suppose to stand on the large circular pad. As the interface activated and a glowing orange holographic tube rose up, she quietly wondered if her feelings of trepidation were similar to what an slave felt when being stuck into a cage. Once the lip of the tube passed her head, the room around her vanished and was replaced by a much darker one.

The new room was larger, with an exceptionally large window on the far side. Through the window she could see the roiling, raging surface of a star. It was likely a magnification of the star from far away, because if the room she was seeing actually was that close to a star, the occupants would all be quite dead. The main attraction of the room, however, was not the giant star outside the window, but the man who sat in the deep shadows.

She studied him for a few moments in silence as he studied her. His eyes, which glowed blue from what appeared to be cybernetic eyeballs, flicked up and down her image. Her own eyes took in his silver hair and the cigar he was sucking on.

"Commander Shepard," the man said after he finished with the cigar. "It's nice to finally meet you, face to face."

"Illusive Man," Shepard said. "I know it was you who brought me back from the dead. I'd like to know why?"

"I see," the Illusive Man said. "Good. That saves me from having to make introductions." He took another puff of his cigar. "I believe you already know why I brought you back."

Shepard narrowed her eyes. "You mean the Reapers." She shook her head. "For the amount of money it took to bring me back you could have trained a small army. Why me?"

"No one wants to admit it, but we are at war." The Illusive Man stood from his chair and stepped from the shadows, revealing his suit and well cropped features. "The Council and the Alliance were quick to label your claims about Reapers as unsubstantiated rumors, that Sovereign was Geth built dreadnaught, but we know better. I brought you back, Shepard, because you're more than a soldier with experience. You're a icon. A symbol. You stood for humanity when no one else could." The Illusive Man took another puff of his cigar and then sat back down, tapping the ashes into a tray on one of the arms of the chair. "I don't know if the Reapers can feel fear, but you killed one of them. That has to mean something."

"So, what?" Shepard asked. "Do you want me to fall in line and do as Cerberus says because you want to save the galaxy?" She shook her head and crossed her arms. "Last time I checked, you were running sick experiments on the Rachni, Thorian, and other humans. If this little speech is supposed to convince me to work for you, then you can forget it."

"I only want what's best for humanity, Shepard," the Illusive man said, his cigar glowing brighter momentarily as he took another puff. "I make no excuses for the work I've done in defense of our species. But that's not what I brought you back for. Human colonies in the Terminus Systems are being attacked, every single colonist abducted. The Citadel Council has no jurisdiction and blames humanity for tempting fate by settling there in the first place. The Alliance is spread too thin patrolling the Traverse to mount a proper defense of our colonies after you ordered the Destiny Ascension saved during the Battle of the Citadel."

"How do you know it isn't pirates or slavers?" Shepard asked skeptically. "It is the Terminus Systems."

"I have my suspicions, but I can't say for sure," the Illusive Man said. "It's related to the Reapers in some way. Call it a gut feeling. Having disavowed you and your claims, the Citadel and the Alliance have no interest in following up on the Reaper threat. Cerberus is the only organization with the will and position to do something about it. I'm sending you to Freedom's Progress. It's the latest colony to be hit. Try to find out who is taking our people."

"Is this a volunteer job or am I being volunteered?"

"If you can't find anything that satisfies our concerns on Freedom's Progress, then we can go our separate ways," the Illusive Man said. "But first, go to Freedom's Progress. Find out who is taking our colonists. I brought you back, Shepard. It's up to you to do the rest." The Illusive Man then lifted his hand and hit a button on his private console. The image of the room faded as the holographic tube powered down.

Shepard shook her head. "So much for resting in peace."

Naruto rolled his shoulders as he got a feel for the armor that Miranda insisted he get fitted for. He didn't anticipate the plated material to be so easy to move in, rather expecting it to be all stiff and restricting. He wasn't big on changing his outfit, because he rather liked his orange and black jacket. However, he quickly warmed to the benefits of what they called a kinetic barrier, which was built into the armor.

Kinetic barriers stopped bullets until the shield buffer depleted, his ninja armor didn't. Kinetic barriers could repair and recharge during battle from the movements of his body, his ninja armor was broken until he found time to repair it. As an added bonus, he got to paint the armor orange with black stripes, similar to his jacket's design. It wasn't the best looking outfit he'd ever chosen to wear, but it was better than that one piece green monstrosity Gai and Rock Lee wore.

Shepard noted to Miranda, while he was pulling the last pieces of armor on, that Sasuke and Sakura both fought with hand to hand or short range weapons. Sasuke used his sword almost exclusively, with some jutsu thrown in here and there. Sakura her fists, which did more damage than one would expect, and small knives.

"Kunai," Naruto said. He pulled one out of the leg pocket the armor had, conveniently, right where he strapped his kunai pouch normally. "They're called kunai. And Sakura can use more than her fists, I've seen her split boulders with her feet. And her teacher could do the same things with one finger."

Shepard regarded Naruto with a bit of skepticism after he said that. But after thinking about it, she nodded as if the idea at least sounded plausible. Miranda on the other hand looked at him like he'd grown another head. She didn't believe it! Naruto wasn't really paying attention to their reactions, though, because he was too busy getting used to the armor and grumbling about being flicked in the forehead by old hags.

"Naruto." Once Shepard had his attention, she said, "I just want to be sure, but are you, too, having trouble using your jutsu?"

Naruto frowned at the question. Then he shrugged and crossed his fingers. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Five copies of Naruto popped into existence all around him. His brow wrinkled as he studied them and then nodded. The five clones then saluted and vanished in puffs of smoke.

"Nope," he said. "Everything is working right. Why? They way you asked made it sound like Sasuke or Sakura couldn't use jutsu."

"Well… If you're not having any trouble then it probably isn't something to worry about," Shepard said. "I'll tell you more later."

Naruto shrugged and, satisfied with his new armor, left the Cerberus armory and headed for the shuttle bay. As Naruto followed Shepard into the shuttle to leave the station, he found the butt of the same kind of gun Miranda had tried to shoot him with, shoved into his face. "Take this," she said.

"I don't even know how to use it," Naruto said as the hand gun was pushed into his hands. "Besides, I'd rather just run up and punch the person we're fighting. Or I could throw a Kunai."

"It's better to have a gun and not need it than to need one and not have it available," Jacob said as he got into the shuttle and closed the hatch. Moments later, the shuttle lifted off and exited the space station. After far enough away, the shuttle accelerated past the speed of light via mass effect toward the colony of Freedom's Progress.

Naruto frowned as he looked over the weapon in his hands. It really wasn't that hard to figure out, now that he was looking at it. From the way Miranda held it when she tried to shoot him, he reasoned that the small little lever was what activated it. And then the bullet came out the small hole on the other end. Made sense.

"How do you get it to stick to the side of your leg," he asked. His enthusiasm caused him to quickly start pushing it against the side of his leg and watching it fall to the floor of the shuttle. He did this in over four times in quick succession until Jacob grabbed the gun.

"Like this," he said. He held the gun to the side of Naruto's leg, just above a strip of glowing blue lights, and then let it go. The gun proceeded to not fall and sort of just floated there, as if it had been nailed down.

"So cool!" Naruto shouted. He pulled the gun off his leg so he could attach it again. He did this several more times until Shepard put a hand on his shoulder.

"I realize this is the first time you've seen this, but do you think you could focus right now?" she asked. "There will be time later for you to explore all of this. But right now we need to focus on figuring out what happened to the colony."

"Right," Naruto said. He reluctantly put the hand gun back on his leg holster and straightened up for what was apparently a pre-mission briefing, if he read the tone of Shepard's voice right. "Okay, what's going to happen once we get there?"

"Shepard," Miranda said, "the Illusive Man has placed me and Jacob at your command. I assume that Naruto will follow your orders as well." The brunet glanced at Naruto for confirmation.

"You know more about what's going on than I do," he said. He figured Shepard probably had a plan already. "So I'll just follow your lead."

Shepard nodded. "First, I want to know why no one has figured out who's abducting these colonists yet," she said. "I realize that the Alliance isn't able to be there to stop the abduction, but they must have investigated."

"The reports from the different investigations have revealed that nothing remained of the colonists," Miranda said as she activated her Omni-tool. She read some lines of text before she turned it off. "All of their belongings were still there, untouched. It was almost like the colonists all go up and left without a second thought."

"Other times, looters or scavengers got to the colonies before anyone could investigate," Jacob added. "That's what led to the belief that it's pirates or slavers. This is the first time a Cerberus team will have gotten to one of the effected colonies first."

"Alright," Shepard said with a nod. "Then our first priority is to find and rescue any survivors."

"It is unlikely that there will be any," Miranda said. "All the other colonies were completely abandoned."

"Just keep a look out anyway," Shepard said.

"Very well, Commander," Miranda said with a nod.

"Naruto," Shepard said. She turned to the now visibly excited and attentive young man. "I know you're a ninja and you have combat experience, but I don't want to bring you with me this time." She was slightly shocked how fast Naruto went from super excited to deeply crestfallen. But then she noticed that he hadn't looked away from her, that his eyes still held something like a grin reflected in them. He was acting… and pretty good too. "Instead, I want you to send out those clones you can make to cover the rest of the colony we three can't investigate on our own," she said without missing a beat. "Is that acceptable."

Naruto thought over this for a few seconds and then nodded. All despondency had vanished as fast as it had fallen over him. Shepard began to wonder how he maintained this level of energy all the time. It was like he was a five year old on a constant sugar high, with no sugar low expected to set in. Ever. But then she remembered that he was a ninja. Ninja were odd like that, though Naruto seemed to put Sasuke and Sakura's acting to shame.

"Will do!" Naruto said and gave Shepard a thumb's up. "I'll find out who's taking these people, just leave it to me."

Jacob snorted. "Leave some for us, will ya?"

"We're here," Miranda announced as the blue shifted space around them pulled back to normal black space. The field of stars outside the shuttle's window became filled with a planet. Naruto watched, slack jawed, as they approached the planet for a landing.

"Amazing view, isn't it?" Shepard asked.

"I wonder what my world looks like from space," Naruto mused. "I bet it looks awesome!"

"I never get tired of looking at planets from this high up," Jacob said. "Especially Earth."

"We'd better find out who is abducting all these humans," Miranda said, "or there might not be an Earth left to look at."

Notes from the Author

Wow, I am shocked by the reaction to just one chapter. I've never had a story get six reviews on the first chapter within twenty-four hours, let alone all those faves, hits, and alerts. Thank you everyone.

I apologize for the length of the first chapter. It was mostly exposition that absolutely had to be in there for anything to make sense. Obviously, I'm not opposed to writing and posting long chapters, but my usual length and range mark is around five thousand or less, not the eleven thousand beast from chapter one. I do hope that no one was turned off by the length.

In this chapter Naruto uncovers some of his past through inferences made by other characters. Shepard, obviously, has had the most exposure to ninja out of everyone. The Illusive Man, too, seems to have designs on Naruto, though what they are will remain elusive (haha, bad pun alert). I hope I got the characterization right, and the dialog too. I was doing most of those scenes from memory while trying to add my own writing flavor.

Bahumat knight asked about pairings. Both Mass Effect and Naruto are rife with pairings, and consequently, make it easy to mesh those two parts of the different stories. As far as this story is concerned, I do have a pairing planned for Naruto and Shepard, but not those two together. I'll keep what my plans are in regard to his topic under wraps for now though.

Marvey4 asked about Sasuke's story. That part of the story which covers Mass Effect 1 is, as I noted in the last chapter, worked out so I can keep my facts straight. The things that happened in that "story" will have an effect on this story, just like when you carry over a Game Save from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2. As for whether I'll put Sasuke's story in this one or write a separate fic altogether, I haven't decide though I'm leaning toward giving the story its own fic. On one side, including it in this fic will cut down on the amount of writing I'll need to do because it'll all just be one big story. Perhaps too big. But if I go that route, the background story will either take the form of flashbacks, that I'd rather stay away from, or characters just summing up what happened in their own words, which really isn't doing justice to the story like giving it its own fic would. For example, would telling you, the readers, that Sasuke changed from who he was to (spoilers) in this story be more satisfying, or would you rather watch as Sasuke slowly transforms from his emo-ass-self to (spoilers).

drgonmaster37206, thank you for adding this story to your community.

Thank you for reading. Hope you liked chapter 2.

Addendum: Revised this chapter and added some new parts before I reposted it.